Holding Pattern
by caskett-case
Summary: Holding pattern- (n). a state of waiting or suspended activity or progress. Three times Pepper turns Tony down, and one time she doesn't. Spoilers through IM2. Rated T for language.


_A/N: Oh wow. This is the first fanfic I have written in 5ever (probably a little over a year.) It's my first foray into the Iron Man fandom. So please read and review; I want to hear your thoughts! Just a take on the second movie and what happens after. Okay. Going to go into hiding now. Be (semi) gentle._

* * *

"_You know, if I were Iron Man, I'd have this girlfriend who knew my true identity. She'd be a wreck, 'cause she'd always be worrying that I was going to die, yet so proud of the man I'd become. She'd be wildly conflicted, which would only make her more crazy about me. Tell me you never think about that night."_

Out of all the things that Pepper could have taken away from the day before—Tony's unexpected off-script confession, the subsequent media circus and non-stop phone calls, all the stress surrounding this new Iron Man persona—and all her mind has the ability to latch onto is the small moment she had with him just prior to the whirlwind.

_Tell me you never think about that night. _

Being one of the few women who has the ability to match wits with Tony Stark, Pepper was able to throw it right back at him.

_Are you talking about the night that we danced and went up on the roof, and then you went downstairs to get me a drink, and you left me there, by myself? Is that the night you're talking about?_

In hindsight, not her best move. But it's was her defense mechanism, the best option to keep him at arm's length and to keep herself sane. Because the truth is, Pepper Potts thinks about that night all the time.

She daydreams about the what-ifs and alternative endings to that scene. It's the first thing that flashes through her mind whenever she sees Tony, hears his voice. It's a sensory overload every time. She goes back to that rooftop, the feeling of the cool breeze and the contrast of his hot breath closing in on her, the scent of his cologne, the sight of his darkening eyes.

And that simple memory sets her on fire all over again each time.

So when she goes down to his workshop that morning, she again has to suppress that feeling.

"Morning, Mr. Stark," she calls out to the dark-haired figure seated with his back to her in a swivel chair, concentrated on tinkering with something.

She approaches quickly and sees that he is holding shards of broken glass—the glass case that had held his first arc reactor and read "Proof that Tony Stark has a heart."

She knits her eyebrows at the scene, and Tony takes that as his cue to explain.

"I kind of had to break in and use it."

She nods, a small smile quirking her lips upward.

"Aren't you glad I didn't destroy it now?"

(She can't help but give him a hard time.)

She continues, "Think about it, Mr. Stark. I saved your life. So I think—"

Pepper is going to go onto joke about how the least he could do in return was to attend all of his meetings scheduled for today, but when she meets his eye, she sees the pensive, almost gracious look on his face.

_She did save my life in a way, didn't she?_

The silence is quickly growing thick with tension, and instead of waiting for him to say something, she restars what she had intended to say.

"Anyway, in exchange for my heroics, I believe the least you could do is attend your meetings scheduled for today and arrive to them on time, Mr. Stark."

Any chance he has at a deep moment is broken, so he clears his throat and responded, "I think I can manage that, Miss Potts. Thank you."

"You have a meeting with the Board of Directors at 11:30," she supplies.

_Fuck. _That was the downside of outing your superhero identity—not everyone was going to be pleased by it.

"Will that be all, Mr. Stark?"

He hesitates because there's so much more that he wants to say, and she's secretly hoping that he'll say something.

"That'll be all, Miss Potts."

The holding pattern continues.

Not that she's surprised.

* * *

The next time she turns him down is a little different. Similarly to the rooftop incident, she's angry with him and is worried about just being a conquest. But with fantastic reasoning this time, considering that Tony Stark is so far beyond wasted, he's using his suit to put on a demonstration with the glass walls and has just relieved himself in his while inside of it (but really, how does he do that?).

She's seen Tony's birthday parties get out of hand, but this is a whole new level of irresponsible, and she's not quite sure how to do damage control. So when her and Rhodey finally find each other and exchange disapproving comments, they decide to shut the place down.

She takes the microphone from him as he continues to babble nonsense, at one point announcing, "I love you," calling her "out-of-control gorgeous," and then sticking his face right in front of hers and asking for a kiss.

And for the sake of all that is good and holy does she wish that this was under different circumstances.

Because the Tony behind the façade of playboy billionaire is so much more, and she longs so badly for that to be his driving force. He's changed so much over the past year, since those three months in Afghanistan. He's changed the entire face of his company—from building things that destroy to building suits that save. He's still incredibly conceited and revels in all the credit he receives for "privatizing world peace," but he's getting there. Tony Stark has changed. He's still changing. And, besides Rhodey and Happy, she's been the only one around to be able to see that evolution.

She's one of the very few (and the only woman) he's given the chance to stick around to see it.

But this—the way he's letting girls in skimpy clothing throw themselves all over him—this is a regression.

She can't help but be jealous of all the women staring at him with hungry eyes and the way they shamelessly flirt with him in his inebriated state, pinning their hopes on crawling into bed with him tonight. Hoping for the thrill of sleeping with a superhero.

And it makes her sick.

She's known Tony for ten years now. He's more than the money, more than the suits, more than the outrageous amounts of women. But nobody gets to see that. So in a way, she can't complain. Because she is one of the few people who do get to see it, get to see the man Tony Stark truly can be.

But tonight, he's turned into pre-Afghanistan Tony on steroids.

All she wants to do is carefully help him out of his suit and into his room, let him sleep it off. But she lets Rhodey handle it.

Before she leaves, with an inexplicable tightening in her throat that has her so upset and makes her feel as though her body is about to combust in sobs, Pepper debates going up to Tony's bedroom to check on him, maybe even just stay the night in a guest room and know that he's alright.

Instead, he wakes up alone with a hangover and a headache. She wakes up in her apartment with frustration and heartache.

* * *

The third time is in her new office. He brings her strawberries—the one thing on earth that she is allergic to. Again, she's frustrated with him, even moreso than the last two times this has happened because the stress of how recklessly he has been living is starting to take a toll on her.

And the way he's fumbling over words and obviously trying to make some sort of confession isn't helping. It's pathetic yet adorable when Tony Stark tries to do intimate feelings. And she would love to just take him in her arms and tell him to let it out, tell him to just spill everything that he's been hiding from her.

She wants to know his secrets. She wants to know his heart.

At the same time, she just can't deal with it right now. Whatever he has to say—she doesn't want to hear it. Because she's just not sure how much she can trust Tony Stark's word when he's nearly killing himself driving racecars in Monaco or flippantly deciding to hand over his position as CEO to her. He's volatile right now. And she's guarded. More than ever.

"I need you…," she begins her warning statement, that she just needs him gone, at least for right now.

What she doesn't expect is for him to cut her off.

"See, I need you too, that's what I'm saying," he says.

The next words are out before she can stop them.

"…to leave."

But what he says keeps replaying in her mind after he walks out the door.

_I need you too. _

Her heart skips a bit over the word "need" every time, and again that tightness in her chest, the welling of tears in her eyes, returns. She's so frustrated, torn between wanting to let him in and pushing him away. It's a tug-of-war between her head and her heart. She wonders how it's possible to hate someone and yet want them so much.

She sits in her office all day hoping that he'll come back.

He respects her enough to give her space.

* * *

The one time she doesn't turn him down is the day after her relationship with Tony comes full-circle as they finally share a kiss on a rooftop (not before he saved her from an exploding Hammerdroid, of course).

She's sitting in her office (because, let's face it, she couldn't bear to actually resign) when Tony pokes his head in. When she peers up and closes her laptop, the rest of his body moves past the doorframe, and she can see that he has a bouquet of red roses in his hand.

Her heart melts because she can see in his eyes that he feels bad, that he's really trying to make her happy, that he knows a relationship with him could very well be suicide, but he's never wanted anything else so badly. He's never felt what he feels for Pepper for anyone else. And he desperately wants her to know that.

Tony's never had to woo, persuade, court. They came to him and that was that. This was different. Pepper had to be pursued, and maybe that was just one of many things that drew him to her. She was real. And he wants to do everything he can to convey that to her.

He sits down across from her, laying the roses across her desk, and notices that the swinging sticks desk ornament that had bothered him so much a few days earlier is no longer blocking their view of each other but instead sits proudly on a coffee table on the other side of the office. She paid such great attention to detail, and now it was his job to keep improving in that.

"Pep, I'm sorry," he begins. "I'm not good at this at all."

Her eyebrow quirks upward. "At confessions? At buying flowers? At monogamous relationships? Which part, Tony?"

(She's half-joking and half-serious. She needs to know that he's in this.)

He smirks.

"All of it."

He had come up with an entire speech, had tried to memorize it, remember it all. Nothing is coming to him. His mind is blank. _Shit._

And then he takes a deep breath and just lets go.

"Pepper, before you became my assistant, I went through so many of them. Countless numbers of PAs. Most of them lasted weeks at most. And then you come along—this beautiful, extremely intelligent, perfect woman. And you sparred with me and didn't take shit from me and held your ground. And the only woman I'd ever met who was comparable in strength to you was my mom. And so many times, you had the brains and the will to keep this company afloat. You stuck by me, and when I went flying off the edge, you came flying with me because you cared. And I meant that—you have taken such good care of me, and you deserve better.

I can't say exactly when it happened because I've always been attracted to you from the moment I laid eyes on you, but that started to become deeper, and I've never felt this way about anyone, Pep. And with this whole palladium scare and some of the stupid choices I've made lately, it just made me realize that I'm not okay if I don't have you here. I should have told you everything, and I'm sorry. But I've put you through so much already, and I—"

He hasn't been looking at her this whole time, can't look at her. But then he takes the chance of peering up into those eyes, and he sees the tears threatening to fall. Everything gets caught in his throat.

"Pepper," he breathes. "I love you."

A sob wracks through her body, and she lets the tears spill over. But she's smiling, no, grinning freely because he loves her, and she loves him back.

"I'd follow you to the ends of the earth, Tony. I hope you know that," she chokes out.

He rises from his seat, hoping against any interruptions and comments about seals and grapes because all he wants to do is take her in his arms.

So he does.

The holding pattern breaks.

They're headed for a turbulent, but ultimately safe, landing.

* * *

_Hope you enjoyed. Reviews are great. _


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